Going Forward
by Nagia
Summary: Barret learns to live without. Sequel to "Eight Portraits of a Lady."


**Going Forward  
**

* * *

The anniversary is harder than the day they sent Cloud to Healin. He remembers the sad expressions, faces tight like they could all break at any time--and yes, that day was awful.

But on the anniversary, Barret wakes at four AM with one question circling in his head: Are you the husband?

He rolls onto his back and holds his arm carefully. It's going to rain today, and the bone is aching right where the prosthetic begins, in one of those deep, slow throbs. He holds the truncated arm in his hand, feels the pulse of the vein and tries not to think of other losses--

Three and a half hours later, the sun is a misty, weak pinkness behind gray clouds. The wetness of the morning only makes Barret's arm ache more. He watches the sunrise from his bed.

Are you the husband?

Breakfast is hard to cook with one hand, but Yuffie never rises early enough--not even today, of all days, and he slams the cast iron skillet onto the stove at the thought. He's no good at cooking, not even breakfast food, but he can make eggs and bacon come out alright. The sizzle in the skillet is cheerful, more cheerful than he feels, and the smell of coffee perking, the arrhythmic dripping noises make the morning seem like nothing has changed.

He half expects her to emerge from some room in the house, maybe the room that used to be Cloud's. They've locked it up, now, of course. Yuffie goes in to clean once a week, if she can remember. She usually can't, but it's not like he can blame her, though he likes to try, sometimes. Makes things easier to pretend she's just a selfish, flighty brat.

'course, if she was a selfish, flighty brat, she wouldn't be here. He always remembers that just after they're done shouting at each other.

He knows how she'd look, too. She never did brush her hair before she came down in the mornings. Kept meaning to, kept catching sight of herself in the window or the shiny refrigerator handle and laughing. But she never did get the habit.

Got breakfast done, he knows he'd tell her.

And she'd smile and say--

Are you the husband? He stops. Stops right there, because there ain't no point in keeping it going.

For a full year, after he got the gun-arm, he'd take it off at night just to look at the shiny metal fittings where his wrist used to be. He'd clean it and oil it, the way Vincent does his guns now, clean it and oil it and shine the metal up all pretty.

It was an excuse to look at what used to be his wrist.

Marlene gets up before Yuffie does. Her hair is tangled, so tangled she apparently gave up on trying to braid it. It's stuck in a limp ponytail, all the knots pushed to the back.

"Mornin' sunshine," he says.

Her answering smile is watery, and the, "Mornin' Papa," is quiet.

"How'd you sleep?" He already knows the answer. She must have tossed and turned all night.

She shrugs. "Okay, I guess. What's for breakfast?"

"Eggs and bacon. You need to brush your hair again," he tells her, tone gentle.

There's a moment of silence as her eyes water before--

He remembers the way she cried as a baby. It's changed, gone from long wailing sobs to a sequence of quiet sniffles. He knows the exact cadence and meaning.

"I wish she was _here_," Marlene says.

Before he can cross the kitchen, he catches sight of a slim olive hand on the top of Marlene's head. "Me too, Marls."

Barret only gestures for Marlene to come close. He grabs her up in a one-armed hug the instant he can reach, careful as always of the loaded gun around his little girl.

She hugs him tight. The soft, sharp breath she draws in--the leavings of a sob she tried to hide--only hurts more.

* * *

He went grocery shopping just a couple of days ago so he wouldn't have to do it today. No, today, he called in and signed Marlene out of school and even Yuffie's decided to hang around.

"I might go see how Cloud is," the thief-ninja-brat says, her voice just a little too breezy.

"We're gonna pick up some flowers," Barret replies, then adds, "If you wanna come..."

Three or four different looks flicker across her face. Barret gets the feeling she hadn't quite decided what she was going to do, or what order she'd do it all in, until that minute.

"I'll visit her later. She'd want someone to check on our favorite bundle of crazy."

You can leave that to Vincent, he almost tells her. You can leave that to Reeve. But there's no real arguing with Yuffie once she's made up her mind to do something, and there's no stopping her once she's trying it. Even if she doesn't get it the first time, she'll just keep on trying until she does.

Not to mention Yuffie's right, after a fashion. So Barret holds his tongue and takes Marlene's hand as they walk to his ancient truck.

* * *

In the end, Marlene and Barret conclude that there aren't any flower shops in this little town that sell the right kind of flowers. Not that either of them is sure what the right kind of flowers is--though Marlene has a better idea than Barret, he was never big into gardening and she's been studiously maintaining Tifa's flower garden--but they know they don't like any of the ones they find.

So Barret threads his big blue truck through the knots and snarls of a just-beginning-city's just-beginning traffic. Traffic in this podunk baby town is nothing like what he saw of it back in Midgar, and he's mostly thankful for that.

The uppper plate was almost constantly gridlocked, after all. He'd always been content enough not to own a car.

Once they arrive at the house, Marlene gets her gardening clippers and a basket out, and soon enough they have a basket full of home-grown flowers.

"We should have tried this first," she tells him in the car on the way to the graveyard.

Barret tousles her hair. "You're right," he says.

"Think she'll like them?"

"They're from her garden. If she don't love 'em--"

Marlene giggles. It's almost as if the air's dried up, as if the rain's rained itself out. For an instant, he's not a big bundle of pain, his stomach all tangled up sick. For an instant, the joint where the metal meets the bone doesn't hurt.

Tifa's loss still hurts. Lord knows it hurts worse today, aches worse than his arm ever did.

He still misses her. He always will. They all will, and he knows it.

There's a fractured moment of clarity, like seeing the world through bug eyes, or a thousand lenses at once. He sees the years unfold one right on top of another, All Hallows and Harvestfests and Yules without her, birthdays and anniversaries, and every year it's going to get a little easier.

"She'll love 'em," he says again, softly, and Marlene's tiny hand is warm in his when they stand side-by-side at the grave.


End file.
